1
|
Siira V, Petäjäniemi M, Lutovac S, Kaasila R. The role of mind-body bridging-based university psychology course for students’ well-being. NORDIC PSYCHOLOGY 2022. [DOI: 10.1080/19012276.2022.2159867] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Virva Siira
- Research Unit Values, Ideologies and Social Contexts of Education, Faculty of Education, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
| | - Maria Petäjäniemi
- Department of Educational Sciences and Teacher Education, Faculty of Education, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
| | - Sonja Lutovac
- Department of Educational Sciences and Teacher Education, Faculty of Education, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
| | - Raimo Kaasila
- Professor of Teacher Education and Higher Education, Faculty of Education, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Ho SS, Nakamura Y, Gopang M, Swain JE. Intersubjectivity as an antidote to stress: Using dyadic active inference model of intersubjectivity to predict the efficacy of parenting interventions in reducing stress—through the lens of dependent origination in Buddhist Madhyamaka philosophy. Front Psychol 2022; 13:806755. [PMID: 35967689 PMCID: PMC9372294 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.806755] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/01/2021] [Accepted: 07/11/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Intersubjectivity refers to one person’s awareness in relation to another person’s awareness. It is key to well-being and human development. From infancy to adulthood, human interactions ceaselessly contribute to the flourishing or impairment of intersubjectivity. In this work, we first describe intersubjectivity as a hallmark of quality dyadic processes. Then, using parent-child relationship as an example, we propose a dyadic active inference model to elucidate an inverse relation between stress and intersubjectivity. We postulate that impaired intersubjectivity is a manifestation of underlying problems of deficient relational benevolence, misattributing another person’s intentions (over-mentalizing), and neglecting the effects of one’s own actions on the other person (under-coupling). These problems can exacerbate stress due to excessive variational free energy in a person’s active inference engine when that person feels threatened and holds on to his/her invalid (mis)beliefs. In support of this dyadic model, we briefly describe relevant neuroimaging literature to elucidate brain networks underlying the effects of an intersubjectivity-oriented parenting intervention on parenting stress. Using the active inference dyadic model, we identified critical interventional strategies necessary to rectify these problems and hereby developed a coding system in reference to these strategies. In a theory-guided quantitative review, we used this coding system to code 35 clinical trials of parenting interventions published between 2016 and 2020, based on PubMed database, to predict their efficacy for reducing parenting stress. The results of this theory-guided analysis corroborated our hypothesis that parenting intervention can effectively reduce parenting stress if the intervention is designed to mitigate the problems of deficient relational benevolence, under-coupling, and over-mentalizing. We integrated our work with several dyadic concepts identified in the literature. Finally, inspired by Arya Nagarjuna’s Buddhist Madhyamaka Philosophy, we described abstract expressions of Dependent Origination as a relational worldview to reflect on the normality, impairment, and rehabilitation of intersubjectivity.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- S. Shaun Ho
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, United States
- *Correspondence: S. Shaun Ho,
| | - Yoshio Nakamura
- Pain Research Center, Division of Pain Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT, United States
| | - Meroona Gopang
- Program of Population Health and Clinical Outcomes Research, School of Public Health, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, United States
| | - James E. Swain
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, United States
- Program of Population Health and Clinical Outcomes Research, School of Public Health, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, United States
- Department of Psychology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, United States
- Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Medicine, Renaissance School of Medicine, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, United States
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Ho SS, Nakamura Y, Swain JE. Compassion As an Intervention to Attune to Universal Suffering of Self and Others in Conflicts: A Translational Framework. Front Psychol 2021; 11:603385. [PMID: 33505336 PMCID: PMC7829669 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.603385] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/06/2020] [Accepted: 12/09/2020] [Indexed: 01/09/2023] Open
Abstract
As interpersonal, racial, social, and international conflicts intensify in the world, it is important to safeguard the mental health of individuals affected by them. According to a Buddhist notion "if you want others to be happy, practice compassion; if you want to be happy, practice compassion," compassion practice is an intervention to cultivate conflict-proof well-being. Here, compassion practice refers to a form of concentrated meditation wherein a practitioner attunes to friend, enemy, and someone in between, thinking, "I'm going to help them (equally)." The compassion meditation is based on Buddhist philosophy that mental suffering is rooted in conceptual thoughts that give rise to generic mental images of self and others and subsequent biases to preserve one's egoism, blocking the ultimate nature of mind. To contextualize compassion meditation scientifically, we adopted a Bayesian active inference framework to incorporate relevant Buddhist concepts, including mind (buddhi), compassion (karuna), aggregates (skandhas), suffering (duhkha), reification (samaropa), conceptual thoughts (vikalpa), and superimposition (prapañca). In this framework, a person is considered a Bayesian Engine that actively constructs phenomena based on the aggregates of forms, sensations, discriminations, actions, and consciousness. When the person embodies rigid beliefs about self and others' identities (identity-grasping beliefs) and the resulting ego-preserving bias, the person's Bayesian Engine malfunctions, failing to use prediction errors to update prior beliefs. To counter this problem, after recognizing the causes of sufferings, a practitioner of the compassion meditation aims to attune to all others equally, friends and enemies alike, suspend identity-based conceptual thoughts, and eventually let go of any identity-grasping belief and ego-preserving bias that obscure reality. We present a brain model for the Bayesian Engine of three components: (a) Relation-Modeling, (b) Reality-Checking, and (c) Conflict-Alarming, which are subserved by (a) the Default-Mode Network (DMN), (b) Frontoparietal Network (FPN) and Ventral Attention Network (VAN), and (c) Salience Network (SN), respectively. Upon perceiving conflicts, the strengthening or weakening of ego-preserving bias will critically depend on whether the SN up-regulates the DMN or FPN/VAN, respectively. We propose that compassion meditation can strengthen brain regions that are conducive for suspending prior beliefs and enhancing the attunements to the counterparts in conflicts.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- S. Shaun Ho
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, United States
| | - Yoshio Nakamura
- Department of Anesthesiology, Division of Pain Medicine, Pain Research Center, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT, United States
| | - James E. Swain
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, United States
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Ho SS, Muzik M, Rosenblum KL, Morelen D, Nakamura Y, Swain JE. Potential Neural Mediators of Mom Power Parenting Intervention Effects on Maternal Intersubjectivity and Stress Resilience. Front Psychiatry 2020; 11:568824. [PMID: 33363481 PMCID: PMC7752922 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.568824] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2020] [Accepted: 11/11/2020] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Stress resilience in parenting depends on the parent's capacity to understand subjective experiences in self and child, namely intersubjectivity, which is intimately related to mimicking other's affective expressions (i. e., mirroring). Stress can worsen parenting by potentiating problems that can impair intersubjectivity, e.g., problems of "over-mentalizing" (misattribution of the child's behaviors) and "under-coupling" (inadequate child-oriented mirroring). Previously we have developed Mom Power (MP) parenting intervention to promote maternal intersubjectivity and reduce parenting stress. This study aimed to elucidate neural mechanisms underlying the effects of MP with a novel Child Face Mirroring Task (CFMT) in functional magnetic-resonance-imaging settings. In CFMT, the participants responded to own and other's child's facial pictures in three task conditions: (1) empathic mirroring (Join), (2) non-mirroring observing (Observe), and (3) voluntary responding (React). In each condition, each child's neutral, ambiguous, distressed, and joyful expressions were repeatedly displayed. We examined the CFMT-related neural responses in a sample of healthy mothers (n = 45) in Study 1, and MP effects on CFMT with a pre-intervention (T1) and post-intervention (T2) design in two groups, MP (n = 19) and Control (n = 17), in Study 2. We found that, from T1 to T2, MP (vs. Control) decreased parenting stress, decreased dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) during own-child-specific voluntary responding (React to Own vs. Other's Child), and increased activity in the frontoparietal cortices, midbrain, nucleus accumbens, and amygdala during own-child-specific empathic mirroring (Join vs. Observe of Own vs. Other's Child). We identified that MP effects on parenting stress were potentially mediated by T1-to-T2 changes in: (1) the left superior-temporal-gyrus differential responses in the contrast of Join vs. Observe of own (vs. other's) child, (2) the dmPFC-PAG (periaqueductal gray) differential functional connectivity in the same contrast, and (3) the left amygdala differential responses in the contrast of Join vs. Observe of own (vs. other's) child's joyful vs. distressed expressions. We discussed these results in support of the notion that MP reduces parenting stress via changing neural activities related to the problems of "over-mentalizing" and "under-coupling." Additionally, we discussed theoretical relationships between parenting stress and intersubjectivity in a novel dyadic active inference framework in a two-agent system to guide future research.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- S Shaun Ho
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, United States
| | - Maria Muzik
- Departments of Psychiatry, Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
| | - Katherine L Rosenblum
- Departments of Psychiatry, Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
| | - Diana Morelen
- Department of Psychology, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, United States
| | - Yoshio Nakamura
- Department of Anesthesiology, Pain Research Center, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT, United States
| | - James E Swain
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, United States
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Investigating Clinical Benefits of a Novel Sleep-Focused Mind-Body Program on Gulf War Illness Symptoms: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Psychosom Med 2018; 79:706-718. [PMID: 28406803 DOI: 10.1097/psy.0000000000000469] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE Mind-Body Bridging (MBB) has been shown to be effective for improving disturbed sleep. In this prospective randomized controlled trial, we evaluated the efficacy of sleep-focused MBB compared with sleep education control (SED) for improving sleep in previously deployed Gulf War veterans. METHODS US military service members with sleep and physical health complaints who were deployed in 1990-1991 were randomized to receive three weekly sessions of either MBB (n = 33) or SED (n = 27) between 2012 and 2015. The primary outcome of Medical Outcomes Study Sleep Scale was completed at baseline, weekly during treatment, postintervention, and 3-month follow-up. Secondary outcome measures for posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, fatigue, quality of life, symptom severity, and mindfulness were completed at baseline, postintervention and 3-month follow-up. Salivary samples were collected at five time points per day at each visit for cortisol and α-amylase assessment. Clinician-administered assessments of sleep and co-occurring conditions were conducted at baseline and postintervention. RESULTS MBB was significantly more efficacious than SED in reducing disturbed sleep at follow-up (F(1,180.54) = 4.04, p = .046). In addition, self-reported posttraumatic stress disorder (F(1,56.42) = 4.50, p = .038) for the treatment effect, depression (F(1,93.70) = 4.44, p = .038), and fatigue symptoms (F(1,68.58) = 3.90, p = .050) at follow-up improved in MBB compared with those in SED. Consistently higher percentages of veterans in MBB reported improvements of sleep, pain, and composite sleep/general co-occurring symptoms at the postclinical evaluation, as compared with veterans in SED. Finally, the mean waking level of salivary α-amylase in the MBB declined to a greater extent than that in the SED, at follow-up (F(1,88.99) = 3.78, p = .055), whereas no effects were found on cortisol. CONCLUSIONS Sleep-focused MBB can improve sleep and possibly also co-occurring symptoms in Gulf War veterans. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION Clinicaltrials.gov, NCT01543997.
Collapse
|
6
|
Ho SS, Swain JE. Depression alters maternal extended amygdala response and functional connectivity during distress signals in attachment relationship. Behav Brain Res 2017; 325:290-296. [PMID: 28263829 PMCID: PMC5446941 DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2017.02.045] [Citation(s) in RCA: 35] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/01/2016] [Revised: 02/20/2017] [Accepted: 02/25/2017] [Indexed: 01/22/2023]
Abstract
Maternal attachment-related parenting behaviors require mothers to regulate self-related and child-related distress. Emotion regulation is, in turn, influenced by maternal mood and personal developmental history. In the current study we examined how depressive mood may alter maternal limbic system function and functional connectivity underlying defensive and hedonic motivations. Twenty nine mothers were recruited to undergo a baby-cry task during a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan. Based on self-reported depression symptoms and clinical interview, the participants were grouped as healthy controls (n=15) and currently depressed (n=14). In the baby-cry task, 30s-long auditory stimuli of baby-cry sounds were presented to simulate four conditions: generic baby-cry (Just-Listen), baby-cry as if it were their own child's cry (Your-Baby), baby-cry as if it were themselves (Self), and matched control sounds (Noise). Depressed mothers, as compared to healthy controls, showed greater Self versus Just-Listen responses in left extended amygdala and decreased functional coupling between this left extended amygdala as the seed and nucleus accumbens (NAc) in self-oriented (Self versus Just-Listen) and child-oriented (Your-Baby versus Just-Listen) distress signals. Moreover, the extended amygdala's differential functional connectivity with dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) during the Your-Baby versus Self was increased for depressed mothers and decreased for healthy controls. Thus, depression may affect mothers by increasing baby-cry threat responses and dysregulating associations between threat and heathy child-oriented parenting motivations. These results are discussed in the context of attachment and self-psychology.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- S Shaun Ho
- Department of Psychiatry, Stony Brook University Medical Center, Stony Brook, NY, United States
| | - James E Swain
- Department of Psychiatry, Stony Brook University Medical Center, Stony Brook, NY, United States; Center of Human Growth and Development, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States; Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States; Child Study Center, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States; Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States.
| |
Collapse
|